The sun had risen, Bartolomé was smiling, and the hills beyond Son Españolet shone pink and heliotrope in the morning light as we drove along; yet there was a sharp little nip in the air, and the consumeros were still shivering in their blankets, covered up to their noses and cowering over their braziers. Without these reminders we would have forgotten that it was the depth of winter in the Fortunate Isles.
At Palma station the customary small bustle heralded the departure of the morning train. The porter of the Grand Hotel was seeing off a French couple who were going to Manacor to visit the Dragon Caves. Among the little company of natives with their fringed shawls and white muslin rebozillos the French lady, who wore a smart flower-trimmed toque on her golden hair and costly furs on her shoulders, looked oddly out of place.
On this occasion the 7.40 train left with extreme punctuality, and its rate of progress, though slow, was steady. The only other passenger in our second-class compartment was a swarthy man who wore a yachting cap, white shoes, and a striped blanket. He evidently felt cold, and as he sat curled up on the seat his appearance was a ludicrous combination of a member of the Royal Yacht Club and an Asiatic hospital patient who had risen to have his bed made.
He was journeying to Inca, apparently for the first time, and when he asked for information regarding the number of stations to be passed before his destination was reached, it seemed reversing the natural order of things that we foreigners should be able to give it.
Nearly two months had passed since we travelled over the line, and it was interesting to note the difference in the appearance of things. Then the rich red earth had been furrowed by the plough, or was in process of sowing. Now it was covered with long lines of sturdy beans, or with springing grain level and green as a tennis lawn.
The fig-trees and grape-vines were leafless now; but the evergreen carobs showed the tender shades of the new leaves at the tips of the well-covered branches. The olives wore their accustomed silver-grey, but the first pale blossoms of the year flecked the almond-trees with white.
We had taken combinados tickets, and the second-class fare—two pesetas thirty-five centimos—included the ten-mile coach drive from La Puebla to Pollensa.
When we alighted at the station two diligences were waiting, one for Pollensa, the other for Alcudia. Choosing the right one the Man and I got inside with six other folk—three young men, two young women, one old man, and a baby too young to count. The Boy went on the box, luggage was piled on the roof, and the horses set to work to drag their heavy load over the dry, newly mended road.
The Majorcan way of repairing a road is to put a layer of roughly broken stones over the worn bits, then to block the smooth places with chunks of rock, so that the unhappy travellers are perforce obliged to do the work of levelling by driving over the loose stones.
But though the way was rough and jolty there was no dust, and there were no mosquitoes; and our company, including the brand-new baby, was the soul of good nature. The young men and women chatted gaily together in the harsh Majorcan dialect; the old man evincing a friendly interest in the conversation, which difference of nationality unfortunately rendered unintelligible to us. Once or twice, when the subject under discussion appeared more than usually entertaining, the Man and I whispered to each other, as we had done before in similar circumstances, "If we could only understand what they are saying!"